CAUSE AND EFFECT? September 24, 2005

Richard Black, the environmental science writer for the BBC News website calls into question whether there is reliable evidence available to link current hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico and global warming.

Anything that raises sea temperatures may change the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. There is thirty-five years of satellite data.

The article observes:

The changing phases of Atlantic hurricane activity are not completely understood; but there appears to be a link to fluctuations in the thermohaline circulation, the global pattern of ocean currents which in western Europe appears as the Gulf Stream.

By causing the sea-surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic to change by even a degree Celsius, these fluctuations can bring major differences to the number of hurricanes generated in a particular year.

Other natural climate cycles such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation may also play a role.

Whether, hurricanes reach the US coast on the presence of a upper atmosphere high pressure region, the sub tropical ridge. In its absence hurricanes are able to turn north.

Given we are dealing with a multifaceted system, I would guess, it is probably still advisable not to be pumping greenhouse gases at the current rate.